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Drivers' Bonus Scheme as an Aid to Efficiency

18th August 1944, Page 27
18th August 1944
Page 27
Page 28
Page 27, 18th August 1944 — Drivers' Bonus Scheme as an Aid to Efficiency
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

IN April of last year I wrote a couple of articles in this series dealing with bonus schemes and, besides setting out the basic principles which have been found essential in any successful bonus plan, I gave certain examples of methods of paying bonuses which I had from time to time encountered.

The essentials to success are that the scheme should be simple, easily understood by the drivers, should not encourage overloading, overspeeding, or ill-treatment Of the vehicles, and should be free from liability to the risk that drivers may think they are not getting all the bonus to which they are entitled.

Perhaps the overall essential is simplicity, for once simplicity is achieved, most of the other requirements automatically fall into line.

Quite recently, I had a talk with Mr. J. W. Goy, of T. Goy and Sons (Hauliers), Ltd., of Scunthorpe. This concern 'has a particularly attractive bonus scheme in operation, and it seemed to me to be well worthy of a full description and analysis.

I should mention that when I first examined it, it seemed to be somewhat complicated: it was, indeed, something of a headache to get a thorough understanding of it. Once I had grasped it, however, I realized that it was, after all, quite simple, and that its manysidedness, the factor which made it seem complicated, contributed to its effectiveness without making it less difficult of appreciation by the employee or of application by the employer. Of its generosity there can be no question, as is indicated by the figure of £1,700, which was the amount distributed amongst 15 drivers in the course of the first year of its application. Bonus is paid, first of all, on the actual work done in the week: this is subject to an immediate deduction for unpunctuality. The direct bonus can be £1 per week on this account alone.

The second part of the bonus is awarded for cleanliness of the vehicles. This can be a maximum of £1 per week. There is a penalty in connection with this part of the bonus in that if a driver does not obtain a certain percentage of full marks he is actually penalized.

Deductions from Bonus In Cases of Absenteeism The third part of the bonus is a, more or less, longterm assessment and average of the work done to qualify for the first bonus. The marks gained in qualifying for this first bonus are averaged over a period and a further bonus paid on the result of that calculation. This is so manipulated that irregularity of attendance—absence without just cause—reacts against the employee in the form of a deduction from his bonus.

Then there is a bonus payable in respect of certain traffics. There is a Christmas-box and, finally, a supplementary overriding bonus which is paid to the drivers in proportion to their earnings at the end of the year.

I should, perhaps, state that the work is short-distance haulage, mainly of slag, agricultural products, livestock. sugar beet, ashes, furniture, and so on.

It is part of the clerical system adopted by the company that each driver enters on his daily log-sheet details of the journeys done each day. Each log-sheet is checked by Mr. L. Goy, one ef the directors, and is marked good, fair or poor. For each good, or for each fair, the driver receives a bonus of 3s. 4d. For poor he gets' nothing. The maximum, therefore, that a driver can receive, per week of six days at 3s. 4d., is £1. This part of the bonus is paid in ca-sh weekly.

As a set-off, and to ensure punctuality in starting work in the morning, a 2s.. 6d. fine is imposed on drivers who clock-on after 6.30 a.m. Tnis deduction is made a rigid rule and, being in the form of a fine, it is quite possible for a man who does a poor job of work throughout the week and is several times late to find that he owes smilething to the bonus fund. This, I should imagine, rarely happens.

Overspeeding and overloading, which are commonly experienced as a result of awarding bonus on performance, are prevented in this case. Mr. L. Goy is responsible for operations. He makes a personal check of each journey, so that not only dos he know the time that it should take but where the vehicles should be at any given moment during the journey. The times are based on fair average speeds, and it is Mr. Goy's habit occasionally to check drivers and their times by paying a visit to some point on the road at or about the time when the vehjcle should be passing that way.

Each driver is responsible for keeping his vehicle clean, and there are no half-measures about the requirements in this respect. Not merely the body and exterior are expected to he kept clean, but the underneath parts and every part of the chassis. that this is so will readily be arareciated when I come to describe the method of marking.

To put this scheme into effect the services of the drivers as checkers are requisitioned. There is a rota, and each week two drivers take their turn to examine the vehicles of the fleet.

They are provided with an analysis sheet capable of accommodating the marks for the whole of the fleet. Marks are awarded as follow:—.'Font wheels, 1; cab (outside), 2; cab (inside), 2; engine, 4; battery, front axle and body, 1 mark each; the chassis frame, 3; gearbox, 2; rear axle, 1; ' rear wheels, 2. A total of 20 marks for a perfectly clean vehicle.

Apportioning the Marks According to the Component

A study of the marking system confirms the fairness of the allocation. Obviously, the most difficult part to clean thoroughly is the engine, and for this the maximum number of marks is awarded. Clearly the chassis. frame, which includes all the bits and pieces apart from the major components otherwise mentioned, is the next most difficult, and for that 3 marks are awarded. The gearbox is more inaccessible than the rear axle, so that it gets 2 marks, and the rear axle only 1.

The two drivers whose duty it is to check this feature go around the fleet with their analysis sheet and award marks according to their view of the efficiency with which the work has been carried out. A certain amount of latitude is allowed as to the day on which the vehicle must be cleaned. If for some reason a driver is unable to do it at the week-end, he is allowed until Wednesday of the following week in which to carry out that work. The payment for a thoroughly clean chassis, that is, one which has earned 20 marks, is 10s. per week, so that, already, we have arrived at a position when a driver can earn £1 10s. per week bonus. This second bonus is not paid in cash, but is held over until the end of the year. If the number of marks awarded be no more than 15 out of the 20, not only does he not receive a bonus, but he is fined £1 out of his total bonus for the year. Actually, it is rarely that the-percentage of marks awarded for cleanliness is less , than 90. Quite often it is 100 per cent, and usually, in any one week. 93 is the lowest percentage.

No one can deny that this is a good way of awarding a bonus likely to pay dividends in respect of efficiency of operation. It has often been urged in the columns of this journal that the first step towards efficient maintenance of the mechanism of a Chassis is that it should be regularly cleaned. The mere operation of cleaning often enough discloses incipient faults—the slackening of a nut, or the fraying of a wire—which might otherwise pass unnoticed and develop into a serious defect.

The general effect of this scheme has been to raise to a high standard the degree of cleanliness of these vehicles. I made an examination of several of them as they came into the garage in the evening, and I may say that rarely, indeed, have I seen chassis parts so clean and void of the usual incrustation of dust and dirt which often covers most of the engine, gearbox, rear axle and other exposed units of road transport machines. The process of education up to this high standard, Mr. Goy said, was somewhat slow, but •once the standard was reached it became permanent. One more point should be mentqoned before leaving this aspect of the bonus scheme. In order to prevent the victimization, or perhaps retaliation is a better word, by a disgruntled driver, of the two drivers responsible for examining his vehicle on a week.' when his percentage of marks was abnormally 19w, the results of the examination for cleanliness and the award of bonus marks are not disclosed until some eight 'weeks or so after the examination has taken place, by which time the identity of the checkers responsible has been lost.

Now I come to the third part of the bonus—the long-term assessment and averaging of the marks awarded in connection with the first part of the scheme. The peculiar advantage of this is that it penalizes drivers who are apt to take a day off now and again when they think they will. The period over which this check is made is eight weeks-48 working days.

The log-sheets are put together and reread with their markings of good, fair and poor. ' This time, however, whilst good receives one mark, fair receives only half a mark, and poor no marks.

The total of marks assessed on this basis is based on 48 working days, so that a man who had "good " far every day of the 48 and was not absent on any of those days would obtain the maximum of 100 per cent.,, which is 48 marks. His total will be diminished due to the fact that on some days he obtained only half a mark and on others nil.

• Suppose the man was absent through reasonable cause, such as sickness, or having had permission of his employer to be absent, he might have worked only 40 days. If he had obtained 40 full marks he would still be 100 per cent., because the 40 marks would be put on a basis of 40 days, thus giving him a fair chance against the employee who had had no reason to be away from his work. If, however, he had been absent eight days without just cause, then his 40 marks—assuming he obtained a mark per day for the days he did work—are calculated on a basis of 48 days, so that his percentage, instead of being 100 as in the other two cases, is calculated as 40 over 48, which is 83i• per cent. That is the way in which this part of

the bonus scheme takes account of regularity of attendance at work. For this the award is 10s. per week for each of the eight weeks for 100 per cent. of marks gained.

There is, however, an addition to this amount made up as follows:—Half the fines levied on drivers, who have not properly cleaned their vehicles, is put into a fund. This is made up to £10 by the employers and, to that amount, is added half the fines paid by men for being late. This additional sum is distributed to the first six men in order of bonus earned on the eight-weeks-average scheme. Half the total sum is divided between the first two of the six: a third of the total sum is divided between the third and fourth of the six, and the balance, one-sixth of the total, is paid to the fifth and sixth men. Most of the traffic carried is in tipping wagons. Some of it, however, such as sugar beet and ashes, has to be manually loaded and unloaded. Drivers on this class of work are given a bonus. of Is. per load. At the end of the first year the company paid a further contribution into the bonus fund of 5s. per man per week— £13 per annum—and this was divided amongst the participants in proportion to their total figures for bonus: if a man's total was 90 per cent, of the maximum he was given an additional 90 per cent. of £13 in addition to that which he had already earned. Finally, at the end of the first year's working, each driver was given a Christmasbox amounting to £10.

To summarize this bonus scheme, for the firstpart of the bonus a driver can earn as much as £1 per week, and this -is paid in, cash at the end of each week. For cleanliness of vehicle he can earn a further 10s. per week. For average all-round performance, and punctuality and regularity of attendance, a further 10s. per week, which can be augmented, to some slight extent, by the addition of a proportion of the fines paid by delinquents and, on top of that, Caere is the supplementary bonus award at the end of the year. The foregoing are, what might be called, bonuses on general performance. To these must be added bonuses for particular traffics and the Christmasbox.

To show how the system works, the following figures, giving the amounts earned in the first year by the man who received the most money in the shape of bonus, are of interest. On the cartage of sugar beet at Is. per load, £9 6s.; for ashes, at the same rate, £1 Is.; weekly bonus (paid, in cash), £42 6s. 8(1.; bonus for cleaning, £9 13s. 10d.; yearly bonus (the amount of the eight weeks' averaging), £45 Is. 3d.; additional bonus (the percentage of the £13 added by the company), £11 5s. 4d.; Christmasbox, £10. The total is £128 14s. Id., or nearly £2 10s. per week. • It may be advisable to add that this is additional to the full statutory wage, pins overtime, paid to every driver.

An important part of the scheme is its administration, and this is carried out by a works committee composed of three directors and three employees elected by the drivers. S.T.R.

Tags

People: L. Goy, J. W. Goy

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